A few years ago, when I was asked (read: told) to work on Boxing Day, I was only mildly miffed. It was the beginning of my career in journalism and in order to prove how committed I was, I agreed to go into the office to cover any breaking news.
At the time, I'd just finished university and was a keen bean, eager to demonstrate just how awesome a reporter I could be. Working in a city 170 miles away from my family home in Suffolk, I'd already upped sticks, taken a crazily low paid job in which I was expected to work 11 days on the trot without complaint, and moved to a industrial wasteland of a city I'd never wanted to even visit, let alone live in.
An only-child in a family of tee-total, atheist vegetarians, Christmas Day had never been A Huge Deal for me. We'd half-heartedly subscribe to festive bullshit, but always do the bare minimum to pass as 'normal' members of Chrimbo-mad society. Hauling a tree up to our second-floor living room was a pain in the arse, and my house-proud mum hated the needles shedding all over her immaculate floors. Instead, she'd drape fairy lights around her beautifully preened plants and succulents, and put up minimalist wooden deer decorations. God forbid any 'tacky' Santas, penguins or tinsel would grace our home.
Every year, she'd say: 'Oh Pais, I just can't be arsed!' Which was always met with a resounding: 'Don't bloody do it then!' from my dad and I.
Some years we'd go out for lunch. Others, we'd have vegetables, potatoes and whatever Christmas concoction Linda McCartney was offering that year. I've still, to this day, never sent a Christmas card. When there's only three of you in a unit, and you don't booze, eat turkey or buy into the bullshit over-commercialisation of Christmas in general, it's kind of like 'What's the point?'.
It made me angry thinking about all the families that got themselves into debt over the season, buying more presents than they could afford, all so little Jimmy wouldn't get picked on at school for not having the latest blooming trainers. I hated how advertisers rammed their products down their throats, convincing and guilt-tripping them into buying meaningless crap for their children.
At work, I was that knob who refused to wear anything with so much as a snowflake on it for Christmas Jumper Day. I'd conveniently plan holidays around office parties, desperate to avoid awkward mulled wine-fuelled small talk with people I despised to a backdrop of mistletoe and Jingle Bells.
I'd think of all the non-Christian or secular families in the UK who didn't celebrate Christmas but had to be inconvenienced, putting their lives on hold for a day while everything shut down for the Santa-loving folk.
So, when I realised I wouldn't be able to get home and back in time to work at 8am on Boxing Day, if anything, it came as a light relief. When I phoned my parents to tell them, they didn't seem too bothered that I wasn't coming home, either.
My best pal lived nearby, and we planned to spend the 25th together with her fiancé. With her birthday on Christmas Eve, we were going to go out boozing and then veg in front of the sofa all the next day. I was super excited, 24-year-old me felt like she was reclaiming Christmas.
When 6pm on the Christmas Eve rolled around, and I saw colleagues loading up their cars with presents and metre-long tubes of Jaffa Cakes, I had a tiny pang of jealousy. When I got back to the nine-bedroom dive I was living in, the place was empty and freezing cold. It was just me and the mice. I never for one second imagined I'd feel lonely, and sort of abandoned.
The city centre seemed semi-apocalyptic as I headed to meet my friend at a bar. It resembled a scene from 28 Days Later. I was Cillian Murphy, walking the desolate streets of London without so much as a glimpse of another human. I pictured people I knew, at home with their families, snuggled up in pjs watching telly and eating cheese. And here I was, trudging through slush, alone, in a city I loathed.
Naturally, the sombre feelings faded the more Jager Bombs I necked. We danced to 80s bangers and got so wasted that going threes on some drugs seemed like a fabulous idea (something we never, EVER, do). 'It's Christmas after all!' we said. Surrounded by a bar-full of other lost souls with nowhere better to be on Christmas Eve, we bought a bag of something claiming to be coke.
We counted down to midnight like it was New Year's Eve. Instead of seeing in Christmas Day tucked up in my parents' warm, clean house, I was off my tits, eyes like saucers, caught in an unwanted sweaty embrace with a stranger.
The next thing I knew, it was 8am, I hadn't slept and was back at my pal's, pegging it to the loo to throw up. She'd also been chucking up all morning. 'That. Definitely. Wasn't. Cocaine,' she croaked at me between sicks.
After failing to sleep thanks to the Definitely Not Cocaine, at 2pm we attempted some semblance of Christmas Day. Her fiancé cooked while we sang along to The Rocky Horror Picture Show and took turns to vomit. None of us could muster the gastric strength to eat. Gifts were exchanged (erotic novels all round) and with my head still pounding at 7pm, I got a taxi back to my still empty house share.
Alone and with space to reflect, I was utterly miserable. My pals had been so kind, and I really appreciated their company, but who wants to spend Christmas Day throwing their guts up, nursing the mother of all come downs and trying desperately not to shart? I longed for my mum's otherworldly Delia Smith roast potatoes, Schloer in a fancy glass, endless pots of earl grey and hours spent debating what the hell had happened in the not-so-festive David Lynch film we'd watched.
When I called my mum that night, I cried like a baby. Turns out, she'd just put a brave face on, and was gutted I hadn't spent the day with them.
I'd thought because I didn't 'believe' in Christmas, that I couldn't celebrate it. It shouldn't be about plastering our walls with the image of some random made-up, weird and bearded man. It shouldn't be about splashing out on shit we can't afford. And it certainly shouldn't be about getting the biggest bloody turkey we can find.
The realisation I came to when I spent my first Christmas without my family, was that it should be about making your own traditions with your own little unit. You don't have to do things by the book. I realised I love those stupid wooden deer, the bonkers cacti wrapped in twinkling lights and even the inevitable heated argument about my parents' love for Margaret Thatcher.
You don't have to subscribe to nonsense to have a glorious time with people you love. It's easy to forget that so many people don't have that privilege, and I'm so grateful that I do. Call me cringe, but for me, that's what Christmas is all about. And I won't be spending it off my rocker, or without my family, again.
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.